Young Jacob had to get up regularly at five in the morning and accompany his uncle to the mill, where he saw the hands enter. After this, his time was divided between the counting-house and overlooking; but his duty at the mill was very frequently broken by orders from his uncle to go and inspect the improvements which were in progress on his various estates, especially, at this particular time, the road from Shayton to Wenderholme. The youth made these journeys on horseback, and, being uncommonly well mounted, accomplished them more rapidly than his uncle Jacob, with all his shrewdness, ever calculated upon. In this way the inspection of the new road permitted very frequent visits to Wenderholme Cottage, where, for the present, Miss Edith resided with her grandmother. CHAPTER X. YOUNG JACOB AND EDITH. The state of affairs between Edith and young Jacob was this. Nothing had been said of marriage, but their attachment was as perfectly understood between them as if it had been openly expressed. The misfortune of their situation had been, that although many circumstances had been decidedly favorable to them, it had never been possible to unite all the favorable circumstances together at the same time, so as to get themselves formally engaged. In the days of Colonel Stanburne's splendor and prosperity the Milend influence had been openly encouraging, but Lady Helena had warned Edith in such a decided way against allowing herself to form a plebeian attachment, the allusion to young Jacob being (as it was intended to be) as intelligible as if she had named him, that it had been considered prudent by both the lovers to refrain from compromising the future by precipitation, and they had waited in the hope that, by the pressure of constantly increasing riches, her ladyship's opposition might finally be made to give way. If Colonel Stanburne had continued prosperous, the Milend influence was so strongly, even eagerly, in favor of the alliance, that it would have subsidized its candidate very largely; and as its power of subsidizing increased every day, it was evident that, by simply waiting, his prospects would steadily improve. But the Colonel's ruin, utter and hopeless as it was, had set the Milend influence on the other side; and nobody who knew the obstinacy of Jacob Ogden in opposition, and the relentless lengths to which he would go to get himself obeyed, or to inflict punishment on those who had opposed him, could doubt that, if his nephew refused compliance in this instance, it would be equivalent to a total renunciation of his prospects.